Street Lit Uncovered
The morning session at Library Journal’s “Day of Dialog” featured a lively and informative panel (with audience participation) discussing an emerging genre ‘Street Lit.” The panel consisted of Malaika Adero, Senior Editor, Atria Books: Simon and Schuster; Melody Guy, Senior Editor, One World: Ballantine and Strivers Row: Villard; Pat James, Coordinator of Collection Services, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Karen Thomas, Editorial Director, Dafina Books: Kensington; Barbara Hoffert, Book Review Editor, “Library Journal,” and moderator, Wilda Williams, Fiction Editor, Book Review, “Library Journal.”
Williams began by asking the panelists to define Street Lit. (She also mentioned that LJ is looking for reviewers for this genre, interested parties should contact LJ.) Street Lit tales are generally set in gritty urban settings, and are tragic morality tales about persons existing outside of societal norms. Often, the main characters are gang members, (women and men)who feel they have no other viable choices. Street Lit is the voice of today’s youth, and often has a sensibility similar to hip-hop music and culture. A subset of contemporary fiction, the stories often feature compelling inner struggles, but are exciting and not preachy.
The genre has a huge and passionate following. Patrons at Carnegie Library Pittsburgh ask for books from certain publishing companies (which is a new phenomenon.) The panel encouraged librarians to remember that we need to provide diverse books for our diverse communities. Providing genre fiction doesn’t mean that we are abandoning our missions. One panelist reminded attendees that …just because a person reads street lit doesn’t mean they don’t read Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. In addition, the books are often not very polished, though as one panelist pointed out Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” was written in the equivalent of street language.
An audience member asked the librarian panelist if she had received any challenges to the material. She replied that the library had received one official challenge, from a parent whose 14 year old had taken out a popular Street Lit book which the parent had then read. Because of subject matter, dealing with a Street Lit collection will present challenges, but kids have always tried to find out about the world via books, and these stories can be viewed as cautionary tales.
The panel recommended that librarians read some of the genre’s offerings and talked a bit about Zane, a popular Street Lit author who blends different genres.
How are librarians to know which books/authors to purchase and how can they stay up to date on the genre? Library Journal is planning to expand coverage of Street Lit, but the panel also recommended that librarians check out Black-targeted print media, where publishers of street lit place a lot of advertising and where the books receive a lot of press and audience members suggested visiting publisher/author/distributor websites.
The program concluded with the panelists talking about books that are coming out and galleys available in their booths during BookExpo. The publishers are trying to make backlists available for this exploding genre but that is often difficult as many of the early works, by some of the most popular authors, were self-published. Also, Kensington is working on a YA Street Lit series, with the galleys of the first book in that series, “Drama High” by Ldivine, available at their booth (#2024) in the exhibits hall.
